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Slide Notes

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Using Social Media to Create PLNs

Published on Nov 19, 2015

Slideshow on how to use social media to create professional learning networks. For use at "The Social Science Teacher" workshop session, NSTA Chicago 2015 conference. #nsta15

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Social Media Use

for Professional Learning Networks (PLNs)
Photo by Peter Ras

Personalized Professional Development

Community of Support
For those unfamiliar with the term 'professional learning network', it's essentially personalized professional development-- PPD! It's an online community that you create for yourself in order to get the support that you need. It's completely teacher-driven.
Photo by michael.heiss

Why PLNs?

Passion, Purpose, and Productivity
Before I delve into the how-to's, it's important to ask the other question first--Why? Why create a PLN? For me, it boils down to three reasons: passion, purpose, and productivity.
Photo by Zach Dischner

Passion

Connect with your tribe
Passion: it's the reason why we're all here right now at 8AM at an NSTA science conference. We all have passions for science, for teaching, and for learning; and we're all here to share those passions with one another. We're here to find our people, our tribe--to make those connections with one another.

PLNs allow us to make those connections with each other, and bring those connections wherever we are.
Photo by Lighttruth

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Now we get to the question, How? With so many social media tools out there, it can get very overwhelming. We eliminate that anxiety by focusing on a purpose. What are your PD needs right now?

Forming a clear cut objective will help you focus in on what types of social media tools you will use.

Photo by godserv

Productivity

Use the right tools to meet your purpose
Having a clear purpose will allow you to narrow down, and pick the right social media tools. This leads to increased productivity, and maximizes the potential of your PLN.
Photo by RLHyde

Networking

Twitter: #teachertuesday, #followfriday
It's important to note that your purpose should not remain static. Your purpose and your social media tools should change as you learn from and grow with your PLN.

For example, as a first year teacher, I was hired at a school without a mentoring program. My purpose with social media and PLNs was initially to find a mentor who can help me survive my first year.
Photo by Sue Waters

Resource-sharing

NSTA Learning Center, Email list-serves, Nings 
In my second year, my purpose shifted from networking to resource-sharing. I wanted to improve my previous lessons, so I turned to resources such as the NSTA Learning Center, email list-serves and Nings.

A NIng is a customized social network; some very popular education Nings are Classroom 2.0 and Curriculum 21.
Photo by bengrey

Conversations

Twitter Educational Chats, Forums, Blogs
When I got to my third year of teaching, my purpose changed again, this time from resource-sharing to reflection. I wanted to improve and get new ideas for more effective science teaching strategies.

My use of social media led to more conversations online with my PLN through Twitter chats, forums, and blogs.

Photo by khalid Albaih

   Jerry Blumengarten @cybraryman1

Here's a screenshot of my Tweetdeck, with some of the hashtags and conversations I follow on a regular basis.

Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) has an extensive collection of educational hashtags and calendar of educational chat times listed on his website.

Build Your Toolkit

How do you get started?
How do you get a PLN started with social media? What should you have in your toolkit?
Photo by dysphasic

5 BASIC TOOLS

  • News aggregator (Feedly)
  • Social bookmarking tool (Diigo)
  • Social networking tool (Twitter)
  • Blog (Wordpress)
  • Archiving tool (Evernote)
Personally, I use 5 basic tools to set up and maintain a PLN with social media.

Collect your information--articles, blog posts, videos--and house them in one place with a news aggregator like Feedly. Cull your resources and save the ones that are important to your PD in an online library, with a social bookmarking tool like Diigo. Use tags and lists to sort your resources.

Next, share the wealth by retweeting your resources through Twitter or writing about them in a blog post. Complete the circle of learning by passing on what you have learned to others in your PLN. Make the sharing process easy and automatic by utilizing an archiving tool like Evernote.

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Here's a screenshot of my Feedly account, which was connected to Evernote. I was able to bookmark and archive a video on Evernote, and quickly share that resource on ALL my social media accounts in seconds.

With the vast amount of information you gather daily from your PLN, it's important to systemize how you collect, go through and share your resources with others.

I have my tools... Now what?

  • Stick with a username.
  • Create a "home base".
  • Link all your tools.
  • Make it automatic.
  • CONNECT!
Now that you have your toolkit, what else should you do? I suggest creating a professional username that you can turn into a brand for yourself.

Create a "home base"-- an online space that houses all of your social media links. It can be a Google Profile or a LinkedIn resume. The point is to have all of your tools available in one place.

Next, link all of your tools together and make the process automatic so that you're not overwhelmed with too much information. Use your PLN and the social media tools to connect!
Photo by kvanhorn